Picking up those brushes again.

Hi and welcome to the occasional mutterings of Dave Doc, a military modeller and some time gamer. Gaming and model making has given me a real education, History & Geography(obvious really), Artistry, Politics, Economics, Logistics, Project Management -you try building miniature armies without the last 3.

I will use the blog to record my creations & the odd occasion I actually do some gaming.

I have always been inspired by the aesthetic side of gaming. Playing on well constructed terrain using excellently painted units is always a joy.

I also took the opportunity to meet up with talented people from the Steve Dean Forum, and meeting up to paint the town red - well what else do a bunch of miniature painters do! Well after having of course decided which shade of red and who made it.

I picked up all the target purchases and of course once that had been done went of mooching about for shiny things - so here is the stash

In a moment of mad conversation with the bloggers it was mentioned about weighing the stash - so here is mine - 3.9kg

For the planned purchases I have enough cowboys now in stock to form a serious posse. The second British brigade that fought at El Teb is now sourced as is the Mahdist Cavalry. The personalty sets for Tannenburg 1410 (Testudo from PD Miniatures)are now completed too. The new releases from Empress for the Zulu range . Gurkha's and Naval Brigade from Mutineer Miniatures.

The unplanned purchases mainly fromSteve Barber , were some fantastic 40mm Samurai - , some sample French Hussars and check out the Al Capone mini on the bootleggers rules set.. I was also really pleased with the small paintbrush rack i picked up from Oshiro Model Terrain. An Old West Doc Holliday set of minis plus a western style barn and few palm trees.

The Internet is all well and good for browsing , but it was really good to be able to cast a painters eye over figures in the flesh before buying. The show seemed very busy and there was plenty of hustle and bustle - seems there may life in the old hobby yet.

Anyway time to get stuff on the painting table now - first up the Empress new releases.

An impressive 3.9kg eh! Now I'm tempted to dig mine out just to have a look, but that will involve rescuing it from various hiding places around the house - well I thought that would try and soften the blow for the dear lady wife! Great to meet up Dave and I look forward to more adventures in the future.

It was great to be able to meet up, Dave. Nonetheless, with so many people I felt we didn't get enough time to chat. - c'est la vie. I look forward to seeing your new purchases emerge from your painting talble in the coming months!- Curt